


Confessions Writ In Blood

by Syvaysae



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syvaysae/pseuds/Syvaysae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is much that even the High Sparrow's most devout followers don't know about him. They don't know of his private stores of wildfire, for example. Of his own little birds that whisper secrets into his ear. And of his torture chamber, buried deep beneath the city, where he keeps the sinners he tries to redeem. Loras Tyrell, Knight of the Flowers, is by far his most intriguing project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There was much the High Sparrow kept a secret from even his most devoted followers. His private stocks of wildfire, for example. His own little birds, whispering unholy secrets into his ear from the Red Keep and beyond. And, his torture chamber, tucked deep below the streets of King’s Landing, where he stored his most precious experiments. Four of them, to be precise. Four sinners who had strayed from the light of the Seven and whose souls the High Sparrow felt duty-bound to save.

The first of his captives was an old rapist, a petty lord named Jon Fossoway, of the Red-Apples. He held delusions of entitlement and wealth, although his importance was not such that his disappearance had the Fossoways taking up arms. The devout servant girl he had molested in his chambers one night had come before the High Sparrow in tears, begging forgiveness for having been defiled. Jon Fossoway had been arrested within the hour and had been confined in the chamber, buried three storeys below ground, for a month or more. He was lucky, in a way, in that he was still in possession of all his limbs, although, certain other appendages had not served him so well. In the beginning, he had been very certain that his title would buy him his way out. He threatened and bargained, told the High Sparrow that he could make him rich, bequeath him a manor, give him one of his daughters. The High Sparrow merely laughed. Richer men than Jon Fossoway had tried to bribe and tempt him, and none had yet succeeded.

His second prisoner was a girl of thirteen, known only as Nim, a slip of a thing whose size belied her demeanour. The High Sparrow heard of her through one of the faithful, who had been brutalised by the girl and robbed of their food and clothing. She had no family, so he heard, and stole all she did to feed and clothe herself. He sent one of the Faith Militant to tail her, and gone to see her where she lived - under an old door propped up against an alley corner. He had thought to reach out to her, to offer her the light of the Seven so that she might be redeemed, but she had scratched his cheek and berated him with the most vile of language that would have sent any other High Septon reeling in shock. He had her taken the next night, and sorry as he was to see one so young incarcerated, better he correct her thieving ways than have another of his most devout wounded. Every time the High Sparrow set foot through the door of the chamber, he was met with screams and curses from Nim’s lips. Even when he had taken her hands, her fiery spirit was not quieted. He all but flayed her alive in an attempt to subdue her. But it made no matter, he reassured himself. All souls were born with the Seven’s Light within them. He only had to search a little harder for Nim’s.

Thirdly, there was a whore, allegedly from Volantis, but one never could tell with whores these days. She had been there the longest, ever since the High Sparrow’s regime had begun. Her name was Callaya, the manager of a well-reputed brothel, and it was well known she shipped young children over from Essos to train and serve under her. Before the High Sparrow had cut out her tongue, Callaya had tried to bribe him with carnal pleasures. If he didn’t desire her, she told him, she had plenty of others under her command. Girls, boys, men, crones, cripples, eunuchs, cadavers. The High Sparrow had not taken her tongue in pursuit of saving Callaya’s soul. He had done it to spare his ears the torment of hearing what she would make those children do to please him. It was, as he saw it, his first selfish act, and though he repented thoroughly that night, he could not bring himself to truly feel ashamed of what he had done.

Fourthly and finally, there was the Knight of the Flowers. Loras Tyrell. So many were falling over their own feet to save Queen Margaery from her prison that her elder brother had been forgotten. Loras was accused of sodomy, deceit, and lying before the Gods. After weeks of torture, the High Sparrow had ensured that the Tyrell boy was truly lying before the Gods, splayed, bloody and bare as the day he was born. He had not talked in three weeks, stopped pleading for release at the same time he stopped eating. The High Sparrow was feeding him through a metal pipe he had inserted through a hole in his throat. Even his screams of late had grown few and far between, replaced by guttural groans and coughs, which more and more frequently were flecked with blood.

His hair had been cropped short; beautiful blond ringlets shorn heedlessly away. A portion of his skull had been removed so that the High Sparrow might look upon his brain. His abdomen was ragged with scars, swollen and red, from his captor’s many invasive procedures. His organs had been cut and laid open and sewn up again; his bones had been pried out; his teeth had been twisted and wrenched; his nails pulled from their beds. Once, even, the High Sparrow had bisected Loras’s torso vertically, laying his skin open across the table, forcing Loras to look upon his pulsing organs until he fell into horrified unconsciousness.

And, of course, Loras had paid in kind for the sin of sodomy. The High Sparrow had thrust a rod of white-hot iron up inside of him, until he blistered and bled, forcing him all the while to confess the names of every boy he had ever lain with. After only moments of stubborn refusal and screams, names poured forth; Renly, Olyvar, Martyn, Robin, Harry, Brandon. Names which must once have been whispered sensually and passionately during nights of sin now defiled by agony.

When the High Sparrow left to perform his daily duties amongst the impoverished of Flea Bottom, the four prisoners did not pass a word between them. The chamber used to echo with screams for help, but they had long ago learned that they were out of the hearing of anybody save for their tormentor. Once, Nim had managed to slip her thin wrists from the manacles that bound her, but after hours of searching, had failed to find any kind of exit. When the High Sparrow returned to find her wandering about the cell, he all but flayed her alive in retribution. Callaya had passed her solitary hours lashing her head back and back against the wall, hoping to end her life, but once the High Sparrow discovered these attempts, he strapped her head upright and now she could no longer even turn it.

The High Sparrow treasured every moment he spent with his captives. When they confessed and repented, and they all would, eventually, the High Sparrow bore witness to the purest, truest moment anyone could partake in, where sinner and deity connected on the deepest, most honest level.

He remembered a time he had descended the stairs to his chamber to find Loras Tyrell sleeping atop the table he was strapped to. The boy had been there scarcely a week, only a smattering of scars marred his skin. His golden hair was plastered to his sweaty face as he fidgeted. He was whispering what the High Sparrow took to be pillow talk. What piercing eyes Renly had. What a poor fighter Renly was, but an expert with the only sword that mattered. Sultry teasing. He observed Loras for a short while, listening in fascination to how gently the boy’s sinful words came forth. But eventually, he woke him with a hand to his shoulder, and Loras started awake with a whimper, his eyes darting wildly around, confused, disoriented and afraid.

“What were you dreaming of?” he asked the knight, and almost imperceptibly, Loras tensed.

“I was not dreaming,” he muttered defensively.

“Funny,” the High Sparrow mused lightly, “For I was sure I heard from your lips the name Renly. You would not have been dreaming about the late contender to the throne, perchance?”

“You are mistaken,” Loras replied curtly, “You must have heard the name Wren. Wren Flowers. She was an old friend of mine at Highgarden. I was quite infatuated with her for a time.”

He stared the High Sparrow down resolutely, his glare unwavering.

“Ah,” the older man nodded, “Wren Flowers. Of course. How pleasant a dream.” Loras turned his face away. As punishment for lying, the High Sparrow had produced a knife from a pocket within his robes and severed a finger.

After the amputation had been done, after the High Sparrow had wiped the blood from the table, he sat next to Loras’s trembling form. The boy had fallen silent, after screaming and cursing and writhing about for so long. He stared at the High Sparrow with baleful eyes, glazed with pain but still with steady determination. The man placed a hand on the boy’s bare shoulder and met his gaze.

“Is there anything you wish to confess before the Gods?” the High Sparrow asked. Loras’s voice was hoarse and unsteady when he answered but his tone was icy.

“Nothing that I am not willing to be held accountable for when I am dead,” he returned, “My soul is my own to condemn.”

“Your words are blind ignorance,” the High Sparrow replied, “You have lived in sin for so many years that the promise of the Seven Heavens is devoid of all meaning to you. But all souls yearn to be saved, such is the will of the Mother. We all long to return to her embrace.”

“Why not kill me?” Loras spit back, “Let me face them. Let the Gods do with me as they will.”

“You have spirit, Ser, but surely you cannot wish for yourself a place in the Seven Hells?”

“Would you like to take a wager on that?” Loras growled through gritted teeth.

“No,” the High Sparrow replied dismissively, turning away, “Gods be willing, I will keep you alive until your soul is saved or the Stranger comes to take your soul to its eternal torment.”

Loras, in a fit of anger, had fought furiously at his bonds, wrenching against them to get to the High Sparrow, close enough to close his hands around his throat, to snap his neck, screaming obscenities all the while. The High Sparrow smiled to himself and left Loras alone to his rage.

It was pride that had kept Loras stubborn and close-lipped throughout those days of pain, but after a week or more of constant torture, he had finally broken.

“Is there anything you wish to confess before the Gods?” the High Sparrow asked him again and again as he opened Loras’s belly to the music of his screams.

“You want a confession? I confess!” Loras cried in agony, and the High Sparrow stilled his hands so that Loras might speak clearly. “I confess to everything I have been accused of! To the pride! To the greed! To the arrogance! But most of all, I confess that I am a filthy sodomite! A pillow-biter, a boy-fucker, whatever you would call it, that is what I am! I lay with a dozen or more boys! I took them, or they took me; I had them both ways! I enjoyed it! I sought it out! Many women propositioned me, but I always turned them down in favour of another man! And I regret none of it! Is that what you want to hear? I confess it! Now let me die!”

Slowly, the High Sparrow extricated his hand from Loras’s innards and used one blood-coated finger to paint the seven-pointed star on the boy’s forehead.

“Thank you, my son, for your confession,” he said, “You have taken the first step to redemption. Acknowledgement of your own sins. Now, you must take the second step.”

“Kill me,” Loras snarled, lifting his chin, “I don’t care how you do it.”

“You must repent with your flesh,” the High Sparrow corrected him, “You must suffer so that you might be redeemed. You must pay the price for your sins.”

“With my flesh?” Loras screamed at him, “You have already taken more parts of me than I knew I had! I have paid for whatever my sins were a hundred times over! Had I killed a thousand men, this would be repentance enough!”

“I fear not,” the old man told him sympathetically, “You have confessed that you do not regret your sins. You have not learned, have not repented in truth. You must suffer more yet so that your soul might finally achieve peace in the Seven Heavens.”

That day, Loras stopped speaking and eating. Two days following that, the High Sparrow opened up his throat and pressed inside of it a metal tube through which he could force food. It had been Loras’s last attempt at suicide, and now, with every moveable appendage strapped tightly down, and no way to die unaided, the Knight of the Flowers was helpless, a living, breathing ragdoll to be used and abused at another’s merest whim.

Now that the conversations between the pair had become more one-sided, the High Sparrow told Loras some of what had been happening in the world outside, recounting current events as if he was sitting at a dinner table with friends.

“I have been speaking with your sister lately,” he told Loras one time, which grabbed the boy’s attention, “She resides in one of the cells at the Great Sept. She demands to see you daily. She presumes that you, too, are in one of the cells. It is a pity I cannot enlighten her as I have enlightened you, but she is the Queen. Such actions might draw too much attention, and some, even some believers, are not as understanding of the way of the Seven as I. No matter. She will get her just reward or punishment, as the Gods see fit, soon enough. Meantime, I have other projects. And you, Loras, you are a changed man already, are you not? You have been cured of vanity, greed, pride. In fact…”

Loras closed his eyes as the High Sparrow spoke, muting his words. His sister remained unharmed. That was good. That was all he needed to hear.

He allowed himself to drift back to happier times. When his perversions scarcely mattered. They were regarded with the same eyes as they were now, of course, but nobody was in a great rush to accuse the heir to Highgarden of anything, let alone a matter of a personal nature.

He remembered his first lover, when he was thirteen. His name was Kevan. They had kissed and touched in the warm summer sun, feeling nothing but youthful carelessness and bliss. Of course, they knew that their relationship must be kept secret, but that did not seem to them like such a mammoth task.

“Kevan, I’ve heard that this sort of love is wrong,” Loras told the other boy once, “Do you think that we two are damned?”

“I don’t believe so, Loras,” was Kevan’s assured reply, “There are worse crimes than love. Why would the Gods blink an eye at two boys, happy under the summer sky, when there are murderers and rapists aplenty in the world?” And Loras was persuaded. Kevan was three months older than him, after all.

And then, there was Renly, a love that had lasted many years. He was Loras’s other half, good natured where Loras was solemn, carefree where Loras was anxious.

“You are perfect,” Renly had whispered to him once, in a dark room as the wind howled outside, “So beautiful. The Gods must have sent you especially for me, for I cannot imagine loving anyone more. I would stay by your side when we are both old, and wrinkled and hard of hearing. I have never so much as thought that of any lover I have had before, but for you, it is the most certain thing I know. You, sweet Loras, are my one true love.” Loras felt those words spreading warmth through his chest, easing some of the pain. He basked in them, remembering how Renly’s kisses had sent thrills of joy through him.

When Renly had died, Loras had thought he would never be complete again. But then came Olyvar, with his talk of Dorne, Martyn, with his bawdy jokes, Robin, with his childlike innocence, Brandon, with knowledge that Loras could not begin to fathom. Loras had found happiness in so many men’s passionate embraces, between so many sweaty bedsheets, under so many sets of adoring eyes. He would never regret that, no matter the pain he suffered.

The High Sparrow must have taken that look of tranquility washing across Loras’s face to be spiritual enlightenment brought on by his lecture, for he kissed Loras’s forehead and said, ‘Reflect well, my child,’ before leaving him to attend to Nim.

 _Renly_ , Loras called skywards, thrusting the words up to where Renly must surely be, _Renly, if you can see me, intercede on my behalf with the Gods. Ask the Stranger to take me. Even if it means one of the Seven Hells. I beseech you. I must die. I cannot bear this pain any longer. This is a cruel fate for one whose only crime was to love another._

But pray as he might, no reprieve came. He tried to hold his breath, to no avail. He tried to throw his head back against the table beneath him, but could not gain enough momentum to even blacken his vision for a moment. And soon, too soon, the High Sparrow was back to remove his thumbs, with no milk of the poppy to dull the pain.

And Loras tried to scream, and he cried for mercy in his mind. He tried to draw up the image of Renly before him, but the only one that would come was Renly’s cold corpse lying in his coffin. And there was no respite from the endless, wrenching agony.

Finally, both digits had been removed, and laid upon Loras’s chest for him to regard indefinitely. They curled upon his bare skin like two bloody smiles and sickened, Loras turned his face away. Soaked in sweat from the macabre surgery, Loras managed to wriggle about so the useless stubs of flesh and bone slid to the floor beside him, leaving only a bloody smudge on his torso and a deep pain in his hands to remind him that they’d ever been there.

The High Sparrow was always oh-so-cautious, oh-so-precise with the wounds he inflicted, stemming the flow of blood instantly with hot metal. But Loras could not help but wonder, if perhaps he could manage to wrench open just one incision, something large, something deep, he could finally bleed to death. The ones criss-crossing along his abdomen had healed too much, and he would not bleed quickly enough if he restarted the flow of blood from his thumbs.

No, what he really needed to do was wait until the High Sparrow decided to perform another major operation on him, a thought which Loras reviled with ever fibre of his being, but could see no other solution to. He still had many fingers and toes left to him. Who knew how long it might be before his captor thought it necessary to open up his midriff again?

It was four days later, Loras thought. Days and nights were hard to keep track of in the windowless chamber. By that time, he had lost five of his eight remaining fingers and six toes. By that time, both Jon Fossoway and Callaya had put on a show of utterly devout repentance, and the High Sparrow had rewarded them with a blade through the heart. Then, he had cut them up into manageable pieces and carried them from the chamber in sacks. It had taken long enough that the sweet stench of death had filled the room and stubbornly refused to leave, even after there remained neither hide nor hair of the corpses.

This time, the High Sparrow told him when he entered, as if he were talking to a watching maester who had interest in medicine, he wanted to remove a portion of his entrails. He produced a long, thin blade, and Loras was not sure whether he wanted to scream or sigh with relief. The High Sparrow took his conflicted emotions as something akin to piety.

“Perhaps you are finally starting to repent your sins,” he murmured, as he dabbed a sharp-smelling liquid across Loras’s belly with a cloth, “That is good. You may see the Seven Heavens yet.”

When he slid the scalpel deftly across the skin, Loras couldn’t push a scream through his mangled throat. It was choking, moaning exhalations that found their way into the air. The cut was a long one, and deep, which gave Loras the tiniest shred of relief. If he could manage to open this wound, he would have to bleed out, he would have to.

Loras slipped in and out of consciousness as the High Sparrow fiddled around with his innards. Every so often, he would press a burning hot piece of metal to a section of flesh to stem the flow of blood, which would bring Loras’s vision into sharp clarity. Clammy, feverish sweat dripped from his body as it involuntarily jolted about. And then, it was done and the High Sparrow was gone. Loras must have slipped into blackness for the remainder of the surgery, for he woke to a quiet room and a bellyful of pain. A quick glance downwards showed Loras a freshly stitched up scar, half covered by cloth. There was a thick leather strap across his hips, across his chest, across both wrists, his forehead and ankles. Scarcely any room to move.

Gritting his teeth, Loras thrust his midriff upwards, letting his skin find purchase against his bonds before wrenching himself back. There was a ripping pain that caused him to slump to the table, but when he looked, he saw only a small rivulet of blood leaking from one side of the scar. Not enough. He repeated the same motion, jerking and writhing around like a caught fish, opening the incision stitch by agonising stitch. He was a third of the way through the gory endeavour when a sound gave him pause. Footsteps, outside, descending. The High Sparrow. If he came back to find Loras in the middle of this, he would ensure that the boy could no longer so much as blink and punish him most severely. There was nothing he could do now but keep going. Loras doubled his pace and ferocity, until he had ripped clean through his captor’s painstaking efforts. Inside him was a horror of blood, gore and black thread, which spilled over the edges of the cut as if they were desperate for freedom. The footsteps drew ever closer.

Loras repeated his motion one last time, steadying himself so that his restraints overlapped his wound, and thrust his torso upwards. The blood was flowing thicker now, steadily, pouring from the wound, over the edges of the table, lapping at his chest like waves on the shore. Loras could feel his fingers tingling, growing numb, his vision fading slowly. He felt less pain now than he had felt in months and it was bliss. He was warm, comfortable, safe. The approaching footsteps were inside the room now, there was shouting, but Loras didn’t care enough to open his eyes and look upon the horrified face of the High Sparrow. He didn’t even feel satisfaction at having thwarted him.

The darkness enveloped him like a lover, like Renly’s arms after he had been wounded in battle.

“Renly,” he whispered into the abyss. And he knew that he was home.


	2. Chapter 2

Loras awoke to softness, to a hazy, gentle warmth that somehow didn’t make him feel safe at all. It made him feel sick. For a moment, he didn’t quite remember anything. He was a child, buried beneath too many blankets on a warm, summer’s day. He tried to push those blankets aside, but they would not be moved. He tried to call out for his mother, but his voice would not come. It was too hot. He was suffocating. He moved his hands upwards to push them away, and felt a twinge of muted pain, and something distinctly odd.

“Loras!” A voice sounded as if from many leagues away, a familiar voice, an unfamiliar voice. “Loras! Grandmother, he stirs! Grandmother, he’s waking up!”

 There was a hand on his shoulder, but he felt only the resonance of it, as if someone were toying with his hair.

 At the contact, he felt his eyelids flutter open, but his eyes could find no light. Blackness stretched into the far beyond. Then, all at once, points of colour flickered into being. A blurry shape. A person. Brown hair. A blue dress. Margaery. Her face was scrunched, red with tears. His focus gradually settled onto her face, and he tried to speak her name, but all that he heard from his own lips was a rattling sigh. Margaery gave a wailing sob, stifled with her fist.

 “Seven Hells, girl!” came another voice from behind Margaery, “You promised me that you could control yourself! Must I send you from the room?”

  _Grandmother!_ Loras thought weakly. The wrinkled face which had scolded him and praised him in equal measure through his childhood stood just over the shoulder of his sister, face pinched, steady.

 With much effort, Loras raised one hand to grasp Margaery’s reassuringly, and found himself grappling with shock and bemusement when she pulled her hand away abruptly, fear in her eyes, and just a touch of revulsion.

 “I’m sorry, Grandmother,” Margaery sniffled, as though nothing had happened, “I want to stay.”

 “Loras,” Olenna Tyrell said, stooping down to meet his gaze, “Can you hear me? Nod your head if you can hear me, child.”

 Sluggishly, Loras tipped his head down, but could not find the strength to raise it back up again.

 “Loras, the maester has given you a very large dose of milk of the poppy, which may wear off before we are allowed to feed you more. You have been hurt terribly, my dear boy. The High Sparrow-”

 At the mention of the name, Loras’s entire body tensed and jerked, as if he had been felled by a swift kick. It all came rushing back to him. His imprisonment, his interrogation, the long months of torture, his confession, his attempt to end his life. He thought it had worked. Why hadn’t it worked? Slowly, shakily, he raised his hands to look at them clearly and had to duck his head and take deep breaths to keep himself from vomiting. Mutilated, the both of them. Three fingers left between them, red and ragged and swollen, with scars encircling both wrists. No wonder Margaery had recoiled.

 Unbidden, Loras’s face crumpled and he began to weep. He brought up his arms to cover his eyes, to block out the world and hide his shame. It would have been a mercy if they had found him dead.

 “Loras,” Margaery started hesitantly, “The maester does not know if you will ever walk or talk again. He is sure you will never fight. Loras, I need you to prove him wrong. Please, my dear brother, you must fight all of this, and become once again the man I knew you to be. Loras, talk to me. Loras, please. Say something.”

 Loras tried to obey. Tried to force words out the way he had always done with such ease. But somewhere along the way, his voice became trapped and if any coherent sounds did manage to escape, they were too soft for even him to hear.

 “Loras!” Margaery demanded of him, “You will not let what that beast did to you change who you are, do you hear me? You will speak again! If I have to drag the words out of your throat with my bare hands, so help me you will speak again!”

 “Let the boy rest, Margaery!” Olenna chastised her, grabbing her arm and pulling her away from her brother, who she was now gripping onto with all the intensity of a wild animal.

 “Grandmother, are you not angry?” Margaery snapped, drawing herself up to full height before the old woman, “Do you not want to seek revenge? Do you not want your grandson to spit in the face of the man who tried so desperately to ruin him?”

 “Child, if every time I felt anger I shouted it loud enough for those savages down in Dorne to hear me, my head would be on a spike upon the city walls by now! Channel your anger into cold calculation, my dear, or it will only do you harm.”

 Margaery sank to the ground, and splayed her fingers against the stones.

 “So what do we do, Grandmother?” she asked dully.

 “I have bribed the maester who tended Loras to keep his silence, and I intend to get word out that Loras is recovering well, with the strength of the Warrior behind him. As for what we do, we do our best. ”

 Loras wanted so desperately to speak, to rebuke the pair for talking about him in such a way, to force them to take a dagger and twist it into his heart. The milk of the poppy was leaving him slowly, the pain returning. He could feel every one of his wounds like it was fresh, in his fingers, in his feet, in his head, in his belly. But all he had the strength to do was grit his teeth tightly and turn his face away.

  _You sick bastard,_ he swore skywards, _I begged you for death. I asked little of you, and you denied me even that. Did you not want me? Are there other handsome boys in the Seven Heavens you are amusing yourself with? I hope you are happy with yourself while you can be, for the moment I do die, you will regret ever laying eyes upon me._

 Loras could not even find the will to lean over the edge of the bed as he threw up.

  


The milk of the poppy blurred into foggy obscurity anything that might have happened following that. He woke from his second sleep feeling no better, feeling as ill and wretched as he ever had. The scrappy remains of his hair felt damp, as did his arms and face and shoulders. A meagre attempt at a bath, Loras guessed, delicately avoiding all of his scars. Turning his eyes around the room, he saw only Margaery, sleeping slumped in a chair, wearing the same blue dress and looking exhausted. He wanted to call out to her, to wake her and beg for more milk of the poppy to send him back into oblivion, but again, no sound would come. Looking around once more, he saw a bowl of cooling soup sitting on a table just beside his head. Clenching his teeth and steeling himself, he brought one arm up and knocked the bowl onto the stones, shattering it with a noise so loud it hurt his ears. The motion had wrenched a tender nerve in his shoulder, which seared through his neck and down his back, but Margaery woke. Her eyes were wide with fright, a strangled cry burst forth, thick with sleep. She met his eyes immediately and ran to him, falling on her knees beside him.

 “Loras, you frightened me half to death!” she exclaimed, “Are you alright? Do you need food? Water?” Loras shook his head slightly, but brought his arm up to point with one of his remaining fingers at a tiny vial sitting just out of arm’s reach on the table next to his bed. Margaery clasped his hand and kissed the back, bringing it down to the bed once more.

 “I’m sorry, Loras,” she said softly, “Too much would kill you.” Loras narrowed his eyes at her pointedly, and pulled his hand free of her grasp to point insistently at the vial.

 “Stop it, Loras!” Margaery cried abruptly, her face twisting with pain, “Stop it this instant! I cannot bear you wanting to die! I have grieved for you already; I will not grieve again! I am going to send for more food and drink. Please, _please,_ eat.” Loras turned his face to the wall, so his sister could not see the tears in his eyes.

 “Loras, I know that what happened to you was horrible, a fate worse than death, but it is over now. Do you hear me? You are safe, you are loved. You will be happy again. You will live again. You will feel passion again. You have a whole life ahead of you, waiting to be experienced. I am certain of that. But who can be certain if there is anything at all after death? You want to rejoin Renly so badly, but who can be certain he is even there? Stay with me, Loras. I need you.”

 Loras braced his hands on either side of the bed and steeled himself for pain. If Margaery would refuse him what he so desperately needed, then he would take it for himself. He had lifted himself only a little ways off the bed when Margaery placed one hand on his chest and pushed him back down.

 “Are you mad?” Margaery snapped at him, “Your innards are held together by thread! You need time to heal!” Loras grunted low in his throat in frustration and pain. He was as trapped as he had been previously; Margaery and Olenna his new captors. Their bonds were not of leather and steel, but love and good intentions, which somehow, were twice as effective. If only he could speak, he could persuade her. Death was the best way out of this situation, for all of them. Why was she so determined to hang onto a life that had been snuffed out a long time ago? Loras was only a shell of the man he had once been.

He would only ever be a shell.

 He had been awake minutes and all he wanted to do was fall asleep again. His throat was sore and tight, like a brick had been shoved down it, but still he tried to press the words out. This time, he managed a soft ‘muh’, but even that small victory felt as though it had ripped something from him. Margaery took his meaning and stroked his forehead with a deep sigh.

 “You may have more at noon,” she relented, “It is supposed to be three hours later than that.” She shook her head irately, and stood again, turning her back on her brother.

 “I will be just outside the door,” she informed him, “Sending for your meal. Don't do anything reckless while I'm gone.”

  _Maybe she’s right,_ Loras thought morosely at the ceiling, _Maybe you’re not up there at all. It would explain rather a lot. Or maybe death just made you a sadistic prick._ Margaery was not long at all outside the door. She burst back into the room seconds after Loras had finished his angry prayer, looking as though she had half-expected him to have died in her absence. When she saw him conscious, her shoulders relaxed and she sauntered over like she had not a care in the world. Her whole manner had changed in the minute she had been gone. She was confident again, composed, self-assured.

 “I’ve sent for bread, cheese, fruit and water. And ale, in lieu of milk of the poppy. You haven’t eaten much since we found you.” She sat down again next to Loras, and stared at the wall just over his head in silence for a second.

 “Would it cheer you,” Margaery asked, “To know what happened to the High Sparrow?” She twirled a ribbon on her dress between her fingers intently. Loras looked up at his sister and shrugged.

 “The High Sparrow was not there when the fishwife happened upon your chamber, and nor was he there when the Kingsguard stormed down with their swords drawn. Some carried you and that lowborn girl back to the Red Keep, smuggled you out as best they could, rushed you to maesters. Some lay in wait for the High Sparrow to return, which he did. With scalpels and a burning torch and metal rods and knives. He did not have any of his sparrows with him that day. I’d wager even they do not know of his crimes. The High Sparrow was smuggled back to the Red Keep just as discreetly. He has been locked up in the blackest cells, I have seen it with my own eyes. He is alone, he is starving, he suffers. The Privy Council has decided to wait for your recovery, so that you may judge him and decide upon his punishment. Grandmother persuaded them that to do so was best. I’ve never seen Cersei so furious. I believe she wanted to put his eyes out herself and watch him scream. But my dear husband agreed with Grandmother. He asks me daily how you are. He is plagued with guilt that such a horror happened under his rule. Poor thing. I believe you could ask him for the moon and he would give it to you now.”

 Loras didn’t know how to feel about this news of the High Sparrow. He knew he should feel glad that the man had been arrested, and gladder still that _he_  had been granted the privilege of deciding the punishment. And some part of his mind had already set to work envisioning exactly how he would refrain from gouging the High Sparrow’s eyes out only long enough to make him watch as he disembowelled him. But another part of him was tired of blood, tired of violence. Even if it was inflicted upon such a horrible man. The mere act of imagining the High Sparrow’s screams sent him right back to the secret underground chamber, and the pain in his healing wounds trebled. Once more, he tried for just a single word. The pain was excruciating; the moving air scraped over his healing, swollen wounds like it was made of sand and stones. But eventually, he managed his one syllable word, as two distinct, clipped sounds.

 “Stop.”

 Margaery sat back, her stream of conversation cutting off abruptly.

 “Would you prefer I sat in silence?” she asked him. Loras shrugged once more. He had a feeling he would be doing much of that in the days to come. He felt nothing but revulsion and apathy. He doubted whether he would ever feel joy again. Margaery was not able to sit quietly for long.

 “Do you remember our childhood in Highgarden,” she kept on after only a few moments, “When you and I found that bird’s nest in the grandfather tree? Two tiny eggs with no mother in sight. Do you remember watching them hatch in my chambers and deciding that we would be mothers to them? Mine was Visenya. Yours was Kevan. You were madly in love with Kevan Leygood, do you remember that? You used to talk to that bird like it was Kevan himself. Ah, we loved those birds like our own children.” Loras narrowed his eyes, and reached one hand slowly up to tap against an untouched piece of skin at his throat.

 “Until Father snapped their necks as punishment for us feeding them under the dinner table. I remember. We climbed the grandfather tree every day for a year hoping there would be another nest, more abandoned eggs. Sometimes, I think I should like to go back home to check one more time.”

 “While we are on the topic of Kevan Leygood,” Margaery laughed softly to herself after a pause, tucking her feet up and leaning forward like she was enthralled in the juiciest court gossip, “I suppose it is time to come clean. He knew of your infatuation with him three years before you two started going off into the woods together. I used to listen in on your conversations with that bird and tell him of them soon after. He was mortified, the poor boy, but couldn’t tear himself away. Started sidling up to me whenever I was alone, hoping I’d drop a word or two about you. I believe half the court started thinking that _we_ two were in love!”

 Loras could see through Margaery better than most. People were constantly falling prey to her schemes and plots, but Loras couldn't remember a time when he hadn't known what she was thinking. His sister never let her emotions best her, at least not publicly, which fooled many into believing she had none. But Loras could see a thousand in her eyes at that moment; none of them the slyness and the lightheartedness she was trying for with her tales.

 “Oh, and do you remember-” she began cheerily, just as the door to the room banged open and the pair of them jumped.

 “You sound awfully happy, girl,” Olenna said icily, “Much happier than you were when I left. Has my grandson risen from his sickbed and gone off to skin the High Sparrow alive?”

 “No, Grandmother,” Margaery sighed, rolling her eyes, “But I have realised that there is still so much hope yet. Look at him, Grandmother. He can move more quickly now, his eyes are alert, he has said one whole word to me thus far.”

 “By the Seven, a prodigy!” his grandmother exclaimed acidically, sweeping through the room, “Although, I’m surprised you have even noticed Loras, what with all of your prattling. Have you tended him at all, or did you think he would heal with your hope alone?”

 “I have sent for food,” Margaery protested, “Bread and fruit and ale. It should be here presently.”

 “Fruit and ale?” Olenna repeated in disbelief, “He won’t keep it down.”

 “He loves fruit,” Margaery objected, “And ale will help with the pain.”

 "I am not certain what he has been eating for the past month and more,” his grandmother replied, “But I am sure it has not been anything nearly so flavoursome as fruit.”

 Margaery hopped to her feet and went to whisper something in her grandmother’s ear. Whatever she had said made the old woman nod her head reluctantly and sigh.

 “Do as you like then,” she relented, pursing her lips in displeasure, “But, should he not keep it down, I expect you to clean up. I’ll not have any more servants than absolutely necessary seeing him in this state.”

 It was only a minute or so later that there came a sharp rap upon the door, and a hesitant voice called, ‘Food, Your Grace.”

 The ale was the easiest to get down, Loras found. Swallowing was painful, as was each mouthful, when the ale pooled in the crevices where many of his teeth used to be, but once half the goblet was drained, Loras began to feel like he was floating. The pain ebbed, like the receding tide, the waters present, but lapping at him only gently now.

 Margaery then held up two pieces of fruit, one in each hand, letting them hover near to his hands so that he might choose.

 “An orange, or a peach?” she asked, and with a moment’s hesitation, Loras moved one hand slightly upwards to tap the orange.

 “You must keep it down,” she informed him as she peeled and sliced the fruit, “Or I shall never hear the end of it from Grandmother.”  She took a minute piece of the orange and pressed it between Loras’s lips. Unused to chewing, he let it sit upon his tongue for a minute, and waited for the shock of tasting something besides blood to wear off. Moving his jaw was agony also, as it pulled at the skin and muscle of his throat, but with enough perseverance and gentle movements, he managed to crush the food until it would slip down into his stomach without causing excess damage along the way. Margaery smiled as though she had never been prouder of him and held out another bite.

 When a whole slice of the orange had gone, and stayed gone, Margaery kissed Loras’s forehead and embraced him as best she could.

 “You’ve done so well!” she told him, “Better by far than the maester said! He thought he may have to open up the High Sparrow’s incision in your throat again, so that you would not starve.”

 Loras flinched at her words. That would never happen, he swore to himself. If he had to force his food down his throat with his fingers to ensure it, he would never let the maester near him with a scalpel.

 As a reward, Margaery poured a little more ale into Loras’s mouth, leaving him feeling quite unbalanced. Ale did not take away so much of the pain as milk of the poppy did, but it did not leave him feeling quite so stifled in his own skin.

 “Would you like another orange slice?” Margaery asked. Loras shook his head no. “A piece of bread?” Another shake. “Very well. You _have_ done brilliantly. But you must have more in an hour. And try to talk if you are able. And move your arms and legs. And think hard of all the people who love you. Renly was certainly not the only one.”

 “By the Seven, girl!” Olenna exclaimed from the corner where she had been atypically reserved, “You might as well instruct him to comb your hair and tidy your chambers while he is about it! Leave him to rest, why don’t you? Go attend to your duties as Queen, and I will mind his bedside for a time.”

 “Make sure he eats well,” Margaery reminded her grandmother, “And remember that he is not to have more milk of the poppy until noon at the earliest.”

 “Forgive me,” Olenna said acidically, “I did not realise I was in the presence of a learned maester. I have raised three children and many grandchildren, girl. I have seen all the ailments there are to see. I think I shall be up to this task.” Margaery bit her lip abashedly.

 “Sorry, Grandmother,” she muttered, ducking her head away as she turned for a final word with Loras.

 “I shall go to the High Sparrow, and afterwards to my husband, and afterwards again to dine with Cersei, to tell them all what a swift recovery you are making, and with what courage and strength you are facing your trials. Do not make a liar of me, dear brother.”

 The ale and fruit had soothed his inflamed throat enough so that forcing air through it was not nearly as excruciating as it had been before. Still, he had to struggle for several seconds with every syllable he managed to drag forth, resulting in only two words, choked whispers the both, each word barely distinguishable from the other.

“Love. You.”


End file.
